Reality
by kasey8473
Summary: The gaol scene from both Will and Adhemar's view. Complete
1. Reality

Title: Reality

Author: Kasey

Email: kasey8473@yahoo.com

Summary: In the gaol, Will loses hope.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: 'A Knight's Tale' is the property of Columbia Pictures. I make no money from this work of fan fiction.

Notes: This is just a short piece delving into Will's thoughts during the scene where Adhemar visits him in the gaol and while he waits to go to the stocks. 

~~~~~~~~~~

In the gaol, there is plenty of time to consider the actions that have led me to this pass. Tied and ready to be placed on display, I cannot help but do just that. I think of Jocelyn and her desperate urging to run. Somehow, I doubt she fully understood my decision to stay. I am a knight. In my heart, I believe in the principle of knighthood and for all the position stands for. Knights do not run. If I had run, I'd have turned my back on those ideals.

The door opens and I hear someone entering my cell with soft steps. It is not a guard. They do not move so lightly. The person visiting me is approaching almost warily I think, those footfalls a measured tread. I cannot lash out even should I wish to, so why that slight hesitancy I detect? Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adhemar there and turn my gaze the opposite direction. I've no wish to see that man. 

His fists reign upon me and I can do naught but take those hammer hard blows. My words of stars are thrown back in my face, his voice sneering. Yes, I have stumbled. I have fallen. There is no need for it to be pointed out to me. Does he think I don't realize I'm incarcerated? Why is he here? He has won. Why does he feel he has to shout out his victory, lord it over me? Does he want to remind me of my place? I am reminded already. These blows are unnecessary. For God's sake, just take Jocelyn! Take the prize and go!

I won't cry though, refuse to cry where he can glimpse any of my tears. He will not see my pain.

His hand grasps the wood across my shoulders, turning me slightly, coming into my sight. I look at him...and falter in my resolution. I can feel the curling of my brow and grit my teeth harder to keep from letting the full expression cover my face.

"In what world could you have ever beaten me?"

The words linger in my mind long after he is gone, my body aching from the punches he gave me. The tears I have kept inside begin to fall and I blink them back, trying to imagine a future where I am not disgraced. It's impossible. I can see no further than the stocks. There is no future. I am only a peasant and will never be more than that. A Thatcher's son, born in Cheapside. Adhemar was right. In what world could I have beaten him? He is the noble and I the peasant. The noble always wins and I shall never be noble, never be more than a pretender.

I am broken. I am bleeding. And I am so very cold inside.

My optimism of the past months seems the utmost of foolishness, for who am I but a peasant? I should have listened to my loyal friends and ignored the siren call of the tournament. I should have walked away right then after winning my first joust under the guise of being Sir Hector. I am not a noble and my heart aches with the knowledge that it is all over. No man can truly change his stars and I was a fool to think I could reach out my hand and mix up the heavens to suit my whim. The pain that lashes at me hurts far more than a whip striking flesh and cutting it clear to the bone. There is no light anywhere to give me hope.

Was I led here by God? Or perhaps it was really Satan that drew me. Perhaps I gave in to sly whispers in my mind that stoked my belief in my abilities. Over proud. That's what I was. Here, alone, I can wallow in my fall. The night chill seeps in, oozing beneath my skin and I am beset with shivers, unable to rest.

Tomorrow, I go to the stocks and there I am to stay. I gained the world as Ulrich von Lichtenstein and lost it as William Thatcher. Who will remember me? My friends.... They walked with me down the road to my fate, but have they gone now? Have they taken their own advice and run before they can be arrested on some charges as well? I don't doubt that Adhemar would find some way to punish them for just being with me. Has Jocelyn gone? Is she, even now, being told she must wed him and forget about a peasant man she thought to love? Am I alone in the end? 

Yes. I am utterly alone. This is my punishment, not just from man but from God. It must be. I was blasphemous and proud and I committed a horrible sin of wanting to better myself. Bitterness twists in me as a knife, cutting me further.

Tomorrow, I will be placed for all to see me and mock me. All know my crime I've no doubt. They will throw things at me; rocks, rotten fruit, whatever they think to bring. Fine. Let them take me. I have no motivation to care. I will stand there hour after hour and take whatever they choose to do to me.

My life is done.

How can a man escape himself? In my naïvety, I'd thought I could run from who I am, but I only ran right back into myself. Peasant. Thatcher's son. I am William Thatcher. That is my name and who I'll be until the day I die, no matter what I might wish.

The stones beneath me turn colder and I don't care. I no longer care whether I am warm or cold. Those words sum up my feelings at this very moment most accurately: I don't care. Let that be my motto. Paint it on a piece of ragged wood as my shield, for I don't care at all.

I am done.

I am broken.

And I know my place.

__

Dear God in the heavens above, help me!

I bow my head as best I can and wait for morning.


	2. Unwanted Revelation

Chapter Two: Unwanted Revelation

Summary: Adhemar visits Will in the gaol.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: 'A Knight's Tale' is the property of Columbia Pictures. I make no money from this work of fan fiction.

Notes: The flip side. Looks into Adhemar's mind when he visits Will in the gaol.

~~~~~~~~~~

The presumptuous boy is ready for the stocks, a piece of wood laid over his shoulders and wrists tied tight to it. Looking through the tiny window in the door, I wonder why I felt the need to come here. I am the victor and he nothing but a boy playing at being noble. This is a just punishment. How dare he raise himself up and put on airs?

I nod to the guard and he lets me into the cell. Slowly, I walk to the center where William Thatcher, peasant, is standing. Caution is foremost in my mind. It is not unheard of for prisoners to attempt to use that piece of wood as a weapon, an awkward fight to be sure, but I don't fancy it striking my flesh. No, I have taken my last hit from William Thatcher.

No lowly peasant will best me, ever. That is not a possibility. He has to understand that. He has to understand that I am far better than he. I am a noble and I am therefore, the right. My place in the universe is superior to his, as everyone knows that nobles are the highest of man. Peasants are the lowest, animals in contrast to nobles, for look at how they live and behave. 

They are stupid and dirty as a whole. The men are only good for labor and only some of the women are good for a nights toss. Like that farris in Thatcher's band. Or Lady Jocelyn's maid Christiana. The farris is passably pretty and fairly clean, tiny enough to be subdued easily. Christiana is a middle class peasant and a slightly better quality of peasant than the farris. Those are the women that aren't repulsive to consider. It is the others who are beyond my thoughts. I see no need to deal with those wretched women. Or the men, for that matter. After Thatcher has acknowledged his true station I shall not give another thought to upstart peasants.

William Thatcher dared to raise himself up. The sheer audacity of that! The arrogance! That sort of thinking must be stopped. No man can raise himself up. No man can, by sheer will, change what makes him the man he is. We are all what we are and that is that. We were all born where we were born by God's will and any man trying to break out of his role is challenging God's judgment, yes?

I will break him. He will crumble before me before I leave this cell. This man shall know his place without a single doubt. I will see his tears and hear his cries for compassion.

I circle around to his front, say what I've come to say, striking him as hard as I can with my fist. Weighed, measured and found wanting. Once more I have judged him and found him unworthy. Who am I to judge, to mete out punishment? Why, I am the noble! It is my right. 

He gives involuntary grunts, each of my blows harder than the previous, but otherwise makes no sound. No pleas fall from his lips. Not one single syllable slips out. Why does he not cry? Why does he not break down? He is humiliated thoroughly, arrested before the entire arena and still he stands with stoic resolution. What strange character for a lowly peasant to possess. Such character is almost noble....

The thought enrages me. I am the noble, not him! I feel my anger welling up inside me, and the tiniest sliver of fear as well. That sliver is shoved back, barely acknowledged. 

__

Fall William, damn you! 

I grip the wood, stare into his face, searching for the tiniest crack. He turns blank and resigned eyes to me, not a resignation of realizing he is the lowest of men, but a resignation of his punishment.

He is not sorry. He is not regretting. He'd do it all again given the chance to. Why? Why isn't he begging me to stop hitting him? Just that one word would be sweet to my ears, would reaffirm my mastery over him. _Stop_. He won't say it though. He will never say it. I could keep hitting him until he keels over and keep hitting until he is bloody and bruised and whimpering on the ground, but he will not ever ask me to stop.

This man will never ask me to stop, never throw himself on the ground in hopes of leniency.

Damn.

It is a pain in my gut to know that I would not be so resolute were our positions unthinkably reversed. If I were he, I'd be flinging myself on the mercy of...me. I have no mercy. Mercy is a weakness. He shows mercy and he is weak, but he is also strong, for he doesn't break! It is unfathomable. He is not stronger than me. He is not the better man.

__

He is not the better man.

"In what world could you have ever beaten me?" 

__

Or is he? 

My last blow crumples him to the ground onto his knees, but I've no illusion that he has been beaten. He kneels only because he cannot stand with the wind taken from him. This man will never kneel before me in his rightful place, not willingly. I glance around the cell, my fist tender, my mind whirling. I should feel better about meting out justice by turning him in. I should feel good about reminding him of his place. There should be a joy rolling through me that I've done the proper thing.

So why do I feel like I am somehow in the wrong? Why do I feel sick in the stomach, my words bitter and ash-like in my mouth? Strangely, in this moment, I hate myself even more than I hate him. 

If I am, inconceivably, wrong in my actions and he right in his, then what sort of man does that make me? I do not think I want the answer to that.


End file.
